Welcome to Delirium
by SteneMichele
Summary: Nobody knows what Alaska was thinking when she crashed into that police car, and nobody ever will. Was death on her mind, or was Pudge? What caused her to do what she did, and what exactly happened?


_Drive, Alaska. _My thoughts were frantic, rebounding off of each other to create the most irrational ideas. I was having trouble concentrating on the irony of it all. What were the chances? I mean, I did get drunk a fair share of the time, but _on this night? _Was I still being punished for not dialing those stupid little numbers? They teach them to you over and over again from the time preschool starts, for God's sake. _911, Alaska. God damn it, 911. _

And you forgot. You're the reason, Alaska Young, that your mother is under a fucking gravestone right now. And you _forgot_.

I could hear the wheels screeching across the parking lot, echoing loud and eerie across the silent night. The Eagle would certainly hear but, suddenly, none of that mattered. I had every intention of returning to Culver Creek, yet I couldn't shake the feeling that this was the last time that I would see this place.

Thank God the roads were empty. I had killed somebody on this date several years ago; I was certainly capable of doing it again.

_God, Mom. I'm sorry. I fucked up, just like always. I'm coming. I'm on my way, and I have the white flowers and everything._

In response to that thought, I grabbed the flowers off of the seat and held them to my face. They obstructed my view of the road, but I was beyond dexterity anyway. With trembling breaths, I inhaled their scent. The sweet, innocent fragrance nearly masked the smell of alcohol, and it brought me back to my childhood.

_"Baby girl," my father cooed, pulling me in against his muscular chest. I giggled, trying in vain to pull away. From behind his ear, he withdrew a small white flower that looked to delicate for him to hold without crushing. I glanced up at my mother as he placed it in my hair. _

_"Daddy, I want to go in the labyrinth!" I squealed. My father furrowed his brow, casting my mother an inquisitive look. I slid under his arm easily, taking a step towards the giant corn maze. _

_"The _what, _Alaska?" he demanded. I rolled my eyes, frustrated._

_"The labyrinth," I replied simply. My father shook his head, bemused._

"_I want to go in the labyrinth,_" I repeated aloud, saying each word as if it were cursed by Satan himself. "What the hell were you thinking, Alaska?"

The road seemed to be moving, twisting and contorting like a ribbon. I could see a turn in the road far ahead, behind which sat a police cruiser. The lights were flashing, and in my peripheral vision, I could see a cop walking towards the car.

_Is this your sign, Mom? _I demanded internally. _Did you set it all up like this? _

_Yes_, I decided. This is her sign. And it's a damn good one. How else would I get out of this labyrinth? The whole pistol-to-the-head idea was much too mundane, after all. The idea of pills had never appealed to me, either, so I did what I do best.

I floored it. Straight and fast. Straight. And. Fast.

They say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. I don't know why that would happen, or where that theory even came from. What would be the point of reliving it? What would be the point of seeing yourself make the same mistakes all over again, fucking up repeatedly? It would be like watching reruns of a completely detested show- utterly _pointless. _

Yet, as I began to fall unconscious, there was a tiny part of me that longed to see their faces one more time. At that very moment, right before everything slipped out from underneath me, I would have given up all the life-endangering toxins in the world to _feel _them one more time… Pudge, especially.

_Ah_. Pudge. I clearly didn't owe him anything, seeing as I had taken my own life mere minutes after being in his arms. Yet I felt almost obligated… I felt _compelled, _even, to give him some last words. And they were going to be damn good ones.

With the last wisps of life that I had, I mustered up some parting remarks.

"I tried to seek the Great Perhaps, but all that I got was this fucking labyrinth." The words seemed a little harsh in my delirium, so I managed to squeak out a slight addition to them. For the first time in my life, they sounded vulnerable.

"I've done all I can."


End file.
